Autograph letter signed (“Leonard”) to Marianne Ihlen ("My dear Marianne"), New York [c.November 1964].

Two pages, 202 x 130mm, ink on onion skin paper.

Still in New York, but "anxious to get back to Greece and resume the old disciplines of work and love." He gives a status update on various books: Beautiful Losers is currently under review at Viking, which has also taken his earlier book of poetry, Spice-Box of Earth, for American publication that March, and Secker & Warburg has taken it for England. Overall the books are "selling pretty well," though he finds that "the final result of this publicity is serious depression, one of the reasons I can't stay in Montreal." He mentions other potential projects that would “take too long to explain, but there’s one very lucrative one from the Film Board that I might take, and that’s what these two weeks are about."

On Beautiful Losers he comments, "Much to my surprise Cork likes the novel, and he’s recommended it for publication. Five people have read it at Viking, and its just a matter of the young editors trying to get it past the older editors, and a final policy decision by the president based on legal considerations—it seems that there’s a good chance that the book is blasphemous.”

As usual, he checks to see if she needs money and closes, “Take care of yourself, darling—I’ll be with you soon in our house. All my love, Leonard.”

By descent from Marianne Ihlen.